Determined mom to spring into action at Arnold

Wednesday

Feb 26, 2014 at 12:01 AMFeb 26, 2014 at 9:30 AM

Before this weekend is over, Amanda Hatfield will have a piece of carrot cake. Probably a little scoop of ice cream, too. But that all comes after Friday night. There's no cheat-eating until after this 43-year-old mother of two performs in front of a crowd of thousands at the annual Arnold Sports Festival.

Holly Zachariah, The Columbus Dispatch

Before this weekend is over, Amanda Hatfield will have a piece of carrot cake. Probably a little scoop of ice cream, too.

And you can bet there’s at least one jar of vanilla bean and espresso almond butter tucked into her gym bag.

But that all comes after Friday night. There’s no cheat-eating until after this 43-year-old mother of two performs in front of a crowd of thousands at the annual Arnold Sports Festival. She will contort her body into positions that make an ordinary woman’s quads ache just watching. She will support her entire body — upside down — on only one hand. She’ll do handsprings and high kicks and one-armed push-ups.

And she’ll do it all wearing an outfit that she carries in a plastic baggie. Yes. Her whole costume takes up less room than a ham sandwich.

Full coverage: Arnold Sports Festival

Hatfield is a competitor in this year’s professional-level Fitness International, a test of strength, tone, shape and creativity, choreography and athleticism. She is one of about 18,000 athletes who will compete in 50 sports in the annual four-day Arnold event that begins on Thursday.

“This is it,” said Hatfield who, with her boyfriend, Joe Mazzone, owns Powerhouse Gym in the Cleveland suburb of Berea. “This is the one everyone works for.”

Columbus has spit-shined itself for the 26th annual event that will see nearly 200,000 visitors stream into town. The festival pumps more than $42 million into the region.

This year, the fitness expo at the Greater Columbus Convention Center has expanded to 840 booths. New events are the Pole Fitness National Championships; swimming competitions at the Delaware YMCA; traditional tennis at the Scarborough East Tennis & Fitness Club and a new “ cardio tennis” workout at the Convention Center; an Arnold 212 bodybuilding contest for lighter-weight competitors; and additional wrestling.

And while it is in with the new, it is also out with the old. This is the last Arnold at Veterans Memorial. The Columbus Downtown Development Corp. will raze the building to make way for a modern Ohio Veterans Memorial and Museum.

Holley Mangold ready to compete again

Jim Lorimer is the Columbus businessman and sports promoter who brought an unknown Austrian bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger to Columbus to compete at Veterans Memorial in 1970. After years of joint business sports ventures, Lorimer and Schwarzenegger created the Arnold Classic in 1989.

“Veterans Memorial has been absolutely perfect for us,” Lorimer said. “Losing it has created a very big challenge.”

While next year’s details aren’t final, Lorimer promises that the Arnold isn’t leaving town. The signature bodybuilding event of the weekend, the Arnold Classic, will be held at Battelle Hall in the Convention Center in 2015. It’s also expected that some of the events will move to the Ohio State Fairgrounds.

But the athletes here aren’t worrying about 2015. It’s time to carb-load, ice down and oil up.

Hatfield, who started ballet at 2 and was a competitive gymnast through college, competed in amateur fitness bodybuilding in 2004 but eventually pushed contests aside to focus on life. She made a living as a hairdresser.

After she and Mazzone bought the gym in 2011, she decided to make another push. Amateur athletes compete at various events to earn points based on finish. Eventually, if they’re good enough, they are tapped by the International Federation of Bodybuilders and can be invited to professional events, where money, sponsorships and prestige can follow.

Hatfield earned her pro credentials in 2012.

After several years of declining interest from both participants and spectators, women’s bodybuilding, the top-level competition with the biggest athletes who are judged on muscle, bulk, balance, density and development, was dropped from the Arnold’s professional card for 2014 (amateurs still compete).

That makes Hatfield’s Fitness International category the highest level of competition for the female pros this year; she is the only Ohio woman competing in a field of 14.

Mazzone, a former professional bodybuilder, chokes up a little as he talks about Hatfield’s commitment.

“I don’t know many 43-year-old women who can train to be a world-class athlete, run a business full time, keep the house and take care of the kids,” he said. “It’s about setting a goal and never giving up.”

The commitment to stay fit has never been easy, Hatfield said. When her children — now a 16-year-old competitive cheerleader and a 14-year-old wrestler — were younger, she’d rise before dawn to get in a 6-mile run before they awoke. Even now, she strikes a balance. She indulges in a cup of coffee with sugar-free Italian creamer. No training on Sunday nights because that’s time for True Detective on television. And she looks the other way when her kids bring in Chipotle or Mazzone, every now and then, treats himself to a piece of apple pie.

Instead, she fits fitness into everyday life. She’s thrilled with her new microwave steamer that makes her daily dose of cauliflower and broccoli easier. And she has a stair-stepper cardio machine next to her bed so that nothing gets in the way before she can get in that first 20 minutes of a daily workout.

“I get up and my legs say they can’t do it. They say they don’t want to do it,” Hatfield said. “ But you know what? They do it anyway. It’s about how bad you want it.”